Yet more developments lately in Declan Ganley’s ambitious efforts to build an enormous, unhackable constellation of telecommunications satellites through his company Rivada Space Networks.
Last week, the company that is building his first tranche of around 300 satellites, Terran Orbital, announced it was being bought by Lockheed Martin, the enormous US aerospace company.
Lockheed is spending $450 million (€409 million) on Terran, or 25 US cents a share, which will help to retire Terran’s existing debt and give it a $30 million working capital facility.
The offer is substantially down on the dollar a share Lockheed offer in March that was rejected by the board but it comes at a particularly opportune time for Terran, which has around $300 million debt and a dwindling pile of cash.
Its revenues also fell slightly in the first half of the year. According to Terran’s most recent financial statements, published earlier this month, revenue dropped from $60.4 million in the first six months of 2023 to $57.6 million in the first six half of this year.
At that time, Terran said that, “without additional funding, [cash] will not be sufficient to meet its obligations within the next twelve months”.
Terran entered a deal with Rivada in February 2023 to build the 300 satellites in a transaction worth $2.4 billion, with an option for a further 300 satellites in the future.
Rivada has been busy signing up customers to its proposed network – which it has called the OuterNet – and raising the billions of dollars necessary to build it out.
That Terran half-year report noted that Lockheed accounted for 71 per cent of group revenue and Rivada for 11 per cent.
According to Terran’s financial accounts, it has been paid $6.2 million so far in the six months to the end of June 2024 in relation to the Rivada contract, with $1.6 million outstanding.
Curiously, Terran also reduced the value of its backlog of production from $2.7 billion to $312.7 million, which it said “is primarily driven by the removal of the unpaid portion of the Rivada agreement”. More than 90 per cent of that $312.7 million backlog relates to Lockheed Martin programmes.
Presumably that’s just an accounting matter. A spokesman for Rivada said: “We continue to work with Terran on the contract and expect to continue to do so during and after this transaction. Terran has been a great partner and we fully expect that to continue.”
Which means that Ganley can now get back to the business of raising the billions necessary for the OuterNet, and dealing with his new supplier, Lockheed Martin.
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